Columbia University Leaders Vote to Drop ROTC Ban

NEW YORK (AP) — Student and faculty leaders at Columbia University have voted to welcome the military's ROTC program back to campus, four decades after it was banned during the Vietnam War peace movement.

The New York Times reports that the University Senate voted 51 to 17 on Friday to support ROTC's reintroduction.

Columbia is the latest in a string of Ivy League schools to consider overtures to ROTC following the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy." Harvard said it was welcoming back the Navy ROTC program last month. Yale and Brown have been talking about lifting bans, too.

Columbia banned ROTC from campus in 1969 amid student outrage over Vietnam. Efforts to bring it back a few years ago stalled because of the military's ban on open homosexuality.